Tests

One of the great tests of leadership is to recognize when someone is sincerely willing to give to the best of his abilities, and distinguish that person from those who are indulging a passing fancy or obsession (or worse: covering for bad intentions).

One of the great tests of readership is to discern whether an intelligent mind is operating under stress and without adequate sleep, or whether they simply behold a raving idiot.

One of the great tests of character judgment is to calmly discern between desperation, indiscretion, and rank stupidity.

The greatest test of faith, a superlative test, is not to die for a cause but to live for one: Day after day, year after year, all a long night of enduring perpetual hostility, want of resources, and sometimes even physical adversity. Dying for a cause is easier. Wisdom is to know that only one who has lived for a cause can know this.

And one of the greatest of all tests of wisdom is to make the appropriate inferences about one who knows these things—and knows them not only implicitly by instinct, but consciously enough to articulate them.